A Project Journey through Countries of WHO-Europe, Part 2

As reported in the December edition of the Newsletter, the director of the Academy is for the time being member of a project group at Paracelsus University Salzburg developing a core curriculum in Palliative Care on behalf of WHO-Europe. Special emphasis is laid on the regions of Central Asia and East and Southeast Europe.

The six month field study of 2018 collected quantitative and qualitative data. Target group were in both cases experts in educational work. The quantitative part (survey) comprised beside demographic data and questions about the existing structure of care the key subjects ‘palliative care education’ and its ‘barriers’ in regard to the training of physicians, nurses, psychologist, social workers, and pastors. Our aim is to get, by means of this data collection, an insight into current aspects of postgraduate education and curricular issues and to learn at the same time how far the idea of a core curriculum is considered to be worthwhile.

The results of the survey will be published this year. One result, to come to the point, is that one third of the countries in question have no postgraduate training for the professional groups mentioned above. A second one is the lack of existing curricula. Both results are an incentive to us for promoting our project.